Lawyer fined £1,000 for outing JK Rowling as author of crime novel

Writer JK Rowling: The solicitor who outed her as the author of The Cuckoo's Calling has been fined £1,000 by his professional authority

The solicitor who outed JK Rowling as the author of a crime novel written under a pen name has been fined £1,000.

Chris Gossage, a partner at London firm Russells, was also rebuked by the Solicitors Regulation Authority for breaking confidentiality rules.

In July, Miss Rowling brought a court case against Gossage and his friend Judith Callegari, who revealed on Twitter that Miss Rowling had written The Cuckoo’s Calling as Robert Galbraith.

Russells made a payment to charity after the court heard Rowling had been ‘dismayed and distressed’ by the ‘betrayal of trust’.

The SRA published the decision on their website. It said: 'The SRA decided to issue Mr Christopher Gossage with a written rebuke and ordered him to pay a financial penalty of £1000.'

They stated that 'by disclosing confidential information about a client to a third party Mr Gossage has breached Principles 4 and 6 of the SRA Principles 2011 and failed to achieve outcome 4.1 of the SRA Code of Conduct 2011.'

The SRA website explains: 'Where we impose a sanction against a firm or individual, we are satisfied that they have failed to comply with our Principles.

'Where we are satisfied that a firm or individual has failed to comply with the SRA Principles, we may give a written rebuke.'

The maximum fine is £2,000.

Principle 4 of the SRA rules is to 'act in the best interests of each client' while Principle 6 states that members should 'behave in a way that maintains the trust the public places in you and in the provision of legal services.'

The Cuckoo’s Calling had sold just 1,500 copies, and attracted mixed reviews before Rowling’s authorship was revealed by The Sunday Times on July 14.